It has been proposed to employ a drag mechanism in fishing reels which will automatically restrain or resist movement of the line when the line is being reeled in. Representative of this approach are U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,217 to Blackwell and U.S. Pat. No. 3,326,492 to Murval. In the patent to Blackwell, for example, the drag is increased or decreased according to the increase or decrease in the reeling radius of the line and also requires the use of a star wheel to control the amount of drag. Similarly, in the patent to Murval, the initial drag setting is established by a star wheel and the drag can be controlled by backing off the crank arm for a spool which is mounted directly on the crank arm or shaft. Other patents of interest in this field are U.S. Pat. No. 4,352,474 to Kovalovsky and U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,374 to Kaneko.
Casting reels present somewhat different problems in order to impart a drag automatically in response to cranking or reeling in of the line, since the spool is not directly associated with the crankshaft and requires an intermediate drive mechanism between the crankshaft and spool to selectively impart rotation to the spool. Moreover, it is desirable that the adjustable or manual drag mechanism be directly associated with the drive shaft for the spool but not affect the manner in which automatic drive is imparted by the crankshaft when reeling in the line. In this respect, minimal rotation of the crankshaft should impart sufficient drag to the spool to effectively lock it against rotation and require but a limited amount of rotation of the crank in the reverse direction to completely release the drag so that the nose is controlled by the conventional drag mechanism. In this way, automatic drag can be applied independently of the conventional or adjustable drag mechanism and can be released by the operator with a simple motion associated with cranking when necessary.
It is also desirable to incorporate into a casting reel a line release which will automatically remove any drag on the line in response to the casting motion so that it is not necessary for the operator to coordinate release of the line with the casting motion or throw and therefore can concentrate entirely on the delivery and direction of the cast without separate manipulation of the line release.
Another desirable feature is to provide an automatic drag mechanism as well as an automatic casting mechanism as described which can be incorporated into conventional reels, such as, those described in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,725,013 and my copending application for patent Ser. No. 714,689, filed 13 Jun., 1991 for OPEN FACE SPIN CASTING FISHING REEL.